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Israel has been regularly supplying Syrian rebels near its border with cash as well as food, fuel and medical supplies for years, a secret engagement in the enemy country’s civil war aimed at carving out a buffer zone populated by friendly forces.

The Israeli army is in regular communication with rebel groups and its assistance includes undisclosed payments to commanders that help pay salaries of fighters and buy ammunition and weapons, according to interviews with about half a dozen Syrian fighters. Israel has established a military unit that oversees the support in Syria—a country that it has been in a state of war with for decades—and set aside a specific budget for the aid, said one person familiar with the Israeli operation.

Israel has in the past acknowledged treating some 3,000 wounded Syrians, many of them fighters, in its hospitals since 2013 as well as providing humanitarian aid such as food and clothing to civilians near the border during winter. But interviews with half a dozen rebels and three people familiar with Israel’s thinking reveal that the country’s involvement is much deeper and more coordinated than previously known and entails direct funding of opposition fighters near its border for years.
“Israel stood by our side in a heroic way,” said Moatasem al-Golani, spokesman for the rebel group Fursan al-Joulan, or Knights of the Golan. “We wouldn’t have survived without Israel’s assistance.”
Israel’s aim is to keep Iran-backed fighters allied to the Syrian regime, such as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, away from the 45-mile stretch of border on the divided Golan Heights, the three people said.

But its support for rebels risks heightening tension with President Bashar al-Assad’s government, which has long accused Israel of helping rebel groups. Mr. Assad has said Israel supports rebel groups and launches airstrikes in Syrian territory to undermine his hold on power. Israel has said it doesn’t favor any one outcome in the civil war.

Israel captured part of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed it—a move the international community doesn’t recognize.

The threat of a permanent presence of Iranian and Hezbollah forces on the Syrian side of the strategic plateau could drag Israel’s military further into a conflict that it has watched warily but mostly stayed out of since it began in 2011. Israeli officials haven’t ruled out such an escalation at a time when they are cultivating other alliances with Arab states against their common enemy—Iran.

Fursan al-Joulan’s commander, who goes by the nickname Abu Suhayb, says his group gets roughly $5,000 a month from Israel. It isn’t linked to the Western-backed Free Syrian Army and doesn’t receive Western funding or arms.

The office of Israel’s prime minister referred questions to the Israeli military, which didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether it was sending cash to or dealing directly with rebel commanders in the Golan region. It said only that it was “committed to securing the borders of Israel and preventing the establishment of terror cells and hostile forces … in addition to providing humanitarian aid to the Syrians living in the area.”

The person familiar with Israel’s assistance confirmed that cash moves across the border but said it goes for humanitarian purposes. However, rebels interviewed said they use the cash to pay fighters’ salaries and to buy weapons and ammunition—something the Israeli military wouldn’t comment on.
Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah have played a major role in propping up Mr. Assad’s forces. That help, as well as significant military intervention by Russia, has given the regime the upper hand in the multisided war.

Given the ascendancy of Iran in the war, Israel now fears it will establish control of a strip of land in Syria and Iraq that could be used to transport weapons to military bases in southern Lebanon and the Syrian side of the Golan.

Israeli officials have several times accused the Syrian regime and its Iranian and Shiite allies of planning attacks against Israel from Syrian side of the Golan. By contrast, Israeli officials have pointed out that rebels in that area have never tried to attack.

An Islamic State affiliate also has carved out a pocket of control on the south end of the Syrian Golan and clashes with rebels at times. Its fighters exchanged fire with Israeli forces last year.

The Israeli army has occasionally intervened in the Syrian war by launching airstrikes to stop suspected Iranian arms shipments bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This effort to set up a de facto buffer zone in Syria is reminiscent of another Israeli scheme to protect its northern border by carving out a so-called security zone in south Lebanon during that country’s civil war in the 1970s and 1980s. Known as the “Good Fence” policy, it preceded an Israeli invasion of south Lebanon in 1982 that helped spawn Hezbollah. Hezbollah battled the Israelis until they withdrew in 2000.

Israel has dubbed the current Golan operation “The Good Neighborhood” policy, according Ehud Ya’ari, a fellow at the Washington Institute and Israeli political analyst briefed on Israel’s support to Syrian militias. It began under former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and continued under his successor, Avigdor Lieberman.

The fighters said rebel groups scattered across a roughly 125-square-mile border zone regularly deal with Israel.

“It’s a matter of interests,” said the person familiar with Israeli policy. Israel offers the humanitarian support and in return gets a “buffer zone” of local militias defending themselves.
Fursan al-Joulan is the main rebel group coordinating with Israel, according to fighters. It first made contact with the Israeli military in 2013 and Israel soon began sending cash and other aid, fighters said.

The group had just launched an offensive against regime forces in southwestern Quneitra province, which encompasses the Syrian side of the Golan, according to the spokesman Mr. Golani, who uses a nom de guerre.

The fighters carried wounded comrades to a border point where they were met by Israeli soldiers speaking Arabic, said Mr. Golani. Relatives of the wounded men pleaded for help and ambulances soon arrived to take the injured to hospitals in Israel. The moment was a turning point that opened communication between Israel and the moderate faction of opposition fighters, he said.

For Mr. Golani, the contact was also bittersweet. His cousin had died shortly before the encounter, killed by shrapnel that sliced open his stomach. He said he believes his cousin would have survived with surgery.

Fursan al-Joulan, based in Quneitra province, has roughly 400 fighters loosely allied with four other rebel groups on the Golan that also receive Israeli aid, according to the commander Abu Suhayb and other rebels. Some of these other groups are affiliated with the Free Syrian Army or receive other Western funding and weapons.

In total, there are roughly 800 rebel fighters across more than a dozen villages in this area, where thousands of civilians live, fighters said. Many of the rebels and civilians in this area rely on some level of support from Israel, they added.

“Most people want to cooperate with Israel,” said a fighter with rebel group Liwaa Ousoud al-Rahman, also fighting on the Golan.

2017 has not gone as planned for the unelected power establishment of the United States. Hillary Clinton was meant to have won the election last year, invaded the strategically crucial nation of Syria with 70,000 ground troops to cripple its anti-aircraft system and seize control of its airspace as she’d promised to do throughout her entire campaign, and the inevitable retaliation against this blatant act of war would have resulted in a full-scale invasion of Syria and the regime change that the American deep state has been chasing for years. Instead, the failure of the establishment propaganda machine in 2016 led to the election of a president who’d campaigned on the promise of staying out of Syria, a platform that Trump’s base has ferociously defended even against Trump himself. This combined with the fact that there is still widespread public opposition to a full-scale war with Syria has forced the US power establishment to get a little creative with its consent-manufacturing business this time around, but they have managed to come up with a solid strategy for cooking up support for war.

To get a picture of what this revised strategy for Syria looks like, try this: imagine that your neighbor breaks into your house, comes into your living room, and stands very close to you. He takes up as much of your space as he possibly can, stands in front of you so you can’t see, breathes down your neck, puts his hands in your pockets, takes your food out of your hand when you try to eat. If during this time you accidentally brush up against your neighbor, he screams at you and slaps you in the face. And you know during all this that if at any time you retaliate by slapping him back, your neighbor will murder you and take your house.

This is what we are seeing in Syria today, where yet another attack on Assad’s forces has been carried out by US military invaders in the name of “self defense” in order to provoke a response from the Syrian government so that the US power establishment can finally get its regime change war.

Less than two weeks ago I pointed out that these attacks are getting closer and closer together, and now at just twelve days this is the shortest amount of time between attacks yet. A Syrian warplane dropped bombs a little too close to the newly created US proxy army currently fighting under the name “Syrian Democratic Forces” officially to fight ISIS and unofficially to allow America’s power establishment to insert itself more deeply into the region, and the US air force shot that plane down in its first air-to-air kill since 1999. Again, the Syrian plane did not attack the US-bankrolled Syrian Democratic Forces, it just dropped bombs “near” them, and no actual US forces were anywhere on the ground. This was all it took for the US to launch its fourth intentional attack on the Syrian military since April.

This is all the US deep state needs to do in order to get the regime change war it has been salivating over. If it keeps taking up space in areas where Assad’s military is conducting operations under the pretense of counter-terrorism and humanitarianism, eventually somebody’s going to move a little too close or do something that could be construed as a potential threat, and they’ll be attacked. US military personnel don’t even have to be clued in to the nature of the agenda that they are enabling for these attacks to become a certainty, they only need to be placed in areas where they are likely to encounter Syrian forces and given loose rules of engagement.

Eventually Assad will be forced to defend his military from the invading US forces which keep attacking it (friendly reminder that the US is in Syria without the permission of its government and there is no valid reason for it to be there at all), and then the American power establishment will have their Pearl Harbor. Any counter-offensive will be spun by western media as an unprovoked attack by a murderous dictator, and the photographs of any US servicemen slain will be paraded in front of the camera day and night. This will be enough to manufacture consent among the uninformed masses for yet another regime change invasion of yet another strategic location in the fossil fuel battles. The hope may even be that this manipulation will be enough to wedge Syria apart from its longtime ally Russia, who also has a military presence in the region.

And again, this isn’t even the deep state’s only path to full-scale war with Syria. French president Emmanuel Macron has already warned Russian president Vladimir Putin that there will be military retaliation from NATO against the Syrian government the next time it is believed that Assad has used chemical weapons. This means that NATO forces are already one false flag gas attack away from a full-scale military assault on Syria, which would likely wind up being against Russia and its allies as well. Al-Qaeda is believed to have been making Sarin in Syria since 2013, and there is much reason to believe that not only was April’s sarin gas attack perpetrated by Al-Qaeda, but the one in 2013 was as well. We could very well be a few clever terrorists and a canister of sarin away from World War 3.

It’s like nobody learned anything from Iraq at all. Republican party loyalists have been defending every US attack on the Syrian government with the same idiotic flag-waving gusto they displayed in 2003, and Democratic party loyalists are swallowing the entire Washington Post narrative about both Putin and Assad while referring to US intelligence agencies as trustworthy sources of information.

The mainstream media lies constantly, and lies about Syria in particular, just like they lied to us about Iraq, and establishment loyalists on both sides of the political aisle are swallowing it all hook, line and sinker. They haven’t learned a damn thing.

We need to remind them. We need to wake them up. Please help get the word out about what these horrible people are doing in Syria before they drag us all into something potentially world-ending.

Otto Frederick Warmbier (WARM-beer;[2] December 12, 1994 – June 19, 2017) was an American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea from February 2016 to June 2017 after being convicted of "hostile acts" against the country. Warmbier, then 21 years old, confessed to stealing a political propaganda poster and was sentenced to 15 years' hard labor.[3] The United States made diplomatic efforts to seek Warmbier's release. A U.S. State Department spokesman said Warmbier's harsh sentence was a response to U.S. sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear activities. According to his father, Warmbier's confession was forced, and he was abducted by the North Korean government for political purposes.[2]

Warmbier fell into a coma in North Korea and was released in June 2017, after nearly 18 months there. According to North Korean authorities, Warmbier's coma was a result of botulism and a sleeping pill, but U.S. physicians cast doubt on that claim. Warmbier arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 13 and was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center for immediate evaluation and treatment. He was diagnosed with "severe neurological injury."[4] His father believes that he was "terrorized and brutalized".[5]

Warmbier died on June 19, 2017, six days after his return to the United States.[1]

Trip to North Korea

Fred Warmbier stated that his son Otto was traveling in China at the end of 2015 when he saw a company offering trips to North Korea. He decided to go because he was adventurous, according to his father, who accused the tour operator of specifically targeting young Westerners with slogans like, "This is the trip your parents don't want you to take!" Fred Warmbier said the China-based tour operator, Young Pioneer Tours, advertised the trip as safe for U.S. citizens.[2]

Warmbier traveled to North Korea for a five-day New Year's tour of the country organized by Young Pioneer Tours. Ten other U.S. citizens were in his tour group.[3][13][14][15][16] During his stay at the Yanggakdo International Hotel in Pyongyang, Warmbier allegedly stole a propaganda sign from a staff-only floor of the hotel.[17] The poster said, "Let's arm ourselves strongly with Kim Jong-il's patriotism!". Harming such items with the name or image of a North Korean leader is considered a serious crime by the government.[18]

According to Warmbier's parents, the story about the poster was fabricated by authorities in order to detain him, and he was arrested at the airport when he was trying to leave the country.[2] A video purporting to show the theft was released by state-run Korean Central News Agency on March 18, 2016. In the 18-second low-resolution video, an unrecognizable figure removes the sign from the wall and places it on the floor, leaning it against the wall. This action is shown twice, followed by a higher-resolution picture of the sign on the wall. The face of the person removing the poster is not seen during the video clip.[19][20]

Arrest and conviction

On January 2, 2016, Warmbier was arrested for theft just prior to departing North Korea from Pyongyang International Airport.[9] The others in his tour group left the country without incident. His crime was described as "a hostile act against the state" by the North Korean news agency KCNA.[15]

Warmbier was tried and convicted for the theft of the propaganda banner from a restricted area of the hotel. His trial included his confession, CCTV footage, fingerprint evidence, and witness testimony.[21]

In a press conference on February 29, 2016, Warmbier repeated his confession that he had stolen the banner to take back to the United States. He said he stole it for the mother of a friend who wanted it as a souvenir to be hung on the wall of a church in his hometown of Wyoming, Ohio. He said that she offered him a used car worth $10,000 as payment, and that if he was detained and didn't return, $200,000 would be paid to his mother in the form of a charitable donation. Warmbier said he accepted the offer because his family was "suffering from very severe financial difficulties."[22] He also said he was encouraged in committing his act by his desire to join the Z Society, a "semi-secret ring society" and philanthropic organization at the University of Virginia that helps graduates obtain "high paying" jobs. Warmbier said that the Z Society is closely linked to the CIA.[17]

Warmbier, at the end of the press conference, summarized his confession as follows:

I never should have allowed myself to be lured by the United States administration to commit a crime in this country. I wish that the United States administration never manipulate people like myself in the future to commit crimes against foreign countries. I entirely beg you, the people and government of the DPR Korea, for your forgiveness. Please! I have made the worst mistake of my life! Please! Think of my family.[23]

Warmbier's father later said the confession was coerced and that the story about the used car and church in Wyoming was nonsensical.[2] On March 16, 2016, two hours after U.S. envoy Bill Richardson met with two North Korean diplomats from the United Nations office to press for Warmbier's release,[24] Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.[3][25]Human Rights Watch called the sentencing "outrageous and shocking",[26] while U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that it was clear that North Korea used arrested American citizens for political purposes despite its claims to the contrary.[27]

According to Warmbier's father, he and his wife were “urged to keep quiet” about their son's plight by the administration of Barack Obama. In May 2017, Warmbier's father said he and his wife wanted their son to be part of any negotiations between the United States and North Korea.[28]

Release

On June 12, 2017, Rex Tillerson, the United States Secretary of State, announced that North Korea had released Warmbier. Tillerson also announced that the U.S. State Department secured Warmbier's release at the direction of President Donald Trump. Tillerson said that the State Department continues discussing three other detained Americans with North Korea.[29] Warmbier's parents told The Washington Post that Warmbier was medically evacuated, saying they were told by North Korean officials that Warmbier contracted botulism sometime after his trial and fell into a coma after being given a sleeping pill. They learned he was in a coma only one week before his release.[4] Richardson was in contact with the family and said Warmbier urgently needed medical attention.[30]

His father reported that he had received a call from President Trump at his home asking about the welfare of his son and the family. He said that he had a kind and nice conversation. He also reported that Secretary Rex Tillerson and U.S. special representative Joseph Y. Yun had made the transition possible.[34][35]

Medical condition and death

On June 15, 2017, physicians at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center stated that Warmbier had suffered extensive brain damage, which is consistent with a cardiopulmonary event rather than a head injury, and there was no sign of physical abuse.[36][37]Warmbier's father held a press conference that day, but declined to answer a reporter's question as to whether or not the neurological injury was caused by an assault, saying he would let the doctors make that determination. He stated that they did not believe anything the North Koreans had told them.[2]

Neurologist Daniel Kanter, director of the neurocritical care program at University of Cincinnati Medical Center, said on June 15 that Warmbier was in "a state of unresponsive wakefulness"—a condition commonly known as persistent vegetative state. He was able to breathe on his own, and blink his eyes, but otherwise did not respond to his environment. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed he had suffered extensive loss of brain tissue throughout his brain.[38] Kanter stated that Warmbier's brain injury was typical of a cardiac arrest that caused the brain to be denied oxygen. Doctors also said that they did not find any evidence of physical abuse or torture; scans of Warmbier's neck and head were normal outside of the brain injury.[38] Doctors said they did not know what caused the cardiac arrest, but that it could have been triggered by a respiratory arrest.[39]

Brandon Foreman, a neurointensive care specialist at the hospital, confirmed that there was no sign of a current or past case of botulism, which can cause paralysis but not a coma.[38][39]

Medical records from North Korea showed that Warmbier had been in this state since April 2016, one month after his conviction. Fred Warmbier expressed anger at the North Koreans for his son's condition, saying, "There is no excuse for any civilized nation to have kept his condition secret, and denied him top-notch medical care for so long."[38]

Warmbier died in the hospital on June 19, 2017.[1] His parents and two siblings survived him. His family issued a statement expressing their sadness, thanking the hospital staff, and condemning North Korean officials for their actions.[40] President Drumpf later issued a statement regarding Warmbier's death, "There is nothing more tragic for a parent than to lose a child in the prime of life. Our thoughts and prayers are with Otto’s family and friends, and all who loved him."[1][41]